In the city of Thebes lived the daughter of the river god Asopus, Antiope. Zeus the Thunderer fell in love with her. Antiope had two twin sons. She named them Zeth and Amphion. Fearing her father's wrath because she secretly married Zeus, Antiope put her little sons in a basket and carried them to the mountains. Antiope was sure that Zeus would not allow his sons to die. Indeed, Zeus took care of them. He sent a shepherd to the place where Zetus and Amphion lay. The shepherd found the little sons of Zeus and Antiope, took them home and raised them. So the brothers grew up in the shepherd's house. Already in childhood, Zet and Amphion differed in character from one another: Zet was a strong boy, he began to help the shepherd tend the flock early, while Amphion had a meek, friendly character, nothing attracted him more than music. When both brothers grew up, Zeth became a mighty warrior and a brave hunter. No one surpassed him in strength and dexterity; he was pleased only by the noise of weapons during battle and the hunt for wild animals, while Amphion, the favorite of the god Apollo, only brought joy - playing the golden-stringed cithara, which was given to him by the silver-bowed son of Latona Apollo himself. Amphion played the cithara so wonderfully that he set even trees and rocks in motion with his playing.
The young men still lived with the shepherd, not knowing who their father and mother were. And their mother Antiope languished at this time in the power of the stern king of Thebes Lycus and his wife Dirka. Shackled in heavy chains, Antiope was imprisoned in a dungeon, into which the ray of the sun did not penetrate, but Zeus freed her. The chains fell off her by themselves, the doors of the dungeon opened; she fled to the mountains and took refuge in the hut of the shepherd who raised her sons.
As soon as the shepherd took her under his protection, the cruel Dirka appeared to him; She and other Theban women celebrated a merry festival of Dionysus in the mountains. Wandering through the mountains, wearing an ivy wreath and holding a thyrsus in her hands, she accidentally came to a shepherd’s hut. Dirk saw Antiope, and all the hatred for her flared up uncontrollably in the heart of the cruel queen. She decided to destroy the unfortunate Antiope. Dirka called Zetus and Amphion, slandered Antiope and convinced the young men to tie the innocent daughter Asopus to the horns of a wild bull so that he would tear her to pieces. Zetus and Amphion were already ready to obey Dirka; They caught the bull and grabbed Antiope, but then, fortunately for Antiope, a shepherd came. Seeing that his own sons wanted to tie Antiope to the horns of an angry bull, the shepherd exclaimed:
- Unhappy people, what a terrible crime you want to commit! You want, without knowing what you are doing, to put your own mother to a terrible death. After all, this is your mother.
Zetus and Amphion were horrified when they realized what a terrible crime they could have committed through the fault of the cruel Dirka. In anger, they grabbed Dirka, who had slandered their mother, and tied her to the horns of a wild bull with the words:
- Perish yourself by the death to which you doomed our mother! Let this death be your well-deserved punishment for both cruelty and slander!
Dirk died a painful death. Zetas and Amphion and Lyca avenged their mother: they killed him and seized power over Thebes.
Having become kings of Thebes, the brothers decided to strengthen their city. Only the high Cadmea, the fortress of Thebes, built by Cadmus, was protected by walls, but the rest of the city was defenseless. The brothers themselves built a wall around Thebes. How different was their work! Mighty as a titan, Zeth carried huge blocks of stone, straining all his strength, and piled them on top of each other. Amphion did not carry stone blocks; obedient to the sound of his golden-stringed cithara, the stones themselves moved and formed into a high, indestructible wall. The fame of the great heroes Zeta and Amphion spread far; they were known even far beyond the borders of Greece. Tantalus himself, the favorite of the gods, gave Amphion his daughter Niobe as his wife. Zetus married Aedon, daughter of the king of Ephesus, Pandareus. Niobe and Aedon brought misfortune to the house of the sons of Antiope.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru